Dishing Up New Mexico by Dave DeWitt

My rating: 4 of 5 spoons
gggg 

I'll let you in on a secret. Hot peppers and I do NOT get along. I've never been one to like my taste buds burnt off (I like to TASTE my food, and if my mouth is on fire, I'm not tasting anything!), but I had no problem using small amounts of hot peppers occasionally. I decided to make some stuffed pepper with Anaheim peppers (these are NOT considered hot peppers!) and spent the next 6-8 hours in agony with my hands on fire from cleaning and de-seeding them! That was a couple of years ago, so I'm just now getting to the point of being willing to work with peppers again--albeit with gloves, this time!--so I was thrilled at the opportunity to review this book. I'm still a little gun (or pepper) shy, so I haven't got into making my own chili sauce's yet, but I'm getting there!

Starting small with Grilled Green Chile Polenta, can I just say YUM! On a nice, cold day nothing beats a great bowl of soup, so I decided to make the Creamy Green Chile-Chicken Soup for supper. While I was making it, I started to have my doubts. There was no seasoning other than the green chiles, a LITTLE salt, white pepper and oregano. (Note: I was not ready to dive into roasting and chopping my own chilies like the recipe called for, so I used a large can of diced green chiles in its place.) Ah, you should not doubt this gem of a recipe. It was AMAZING!! My oldest daughter’s first comment was, “You didn’t make enough of this!” Now, this does have a little spice to it if you’re not into spicy foods, but it is so worth it! I didn’t even offer it to my youngest as she is unable to deal with ANY spiciness, and it my 12 year old daughter didn’t finish hers as she said it was too spicy, but the rest of us loved it!

This is a great cookbook with some amazing recipes in it. You should give it a try!

I received a copy of this book from Storey Publishing for my honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.